No Better Time To Be A Domainer

With all the doom and gloom being talked about the domain industry over the past few months I thought it would be nice to throw some positive light on today's overall domain marketplace situation.

The negativity about the upcoming Snowe Bill, the drama over the resurfacing of an infamous domain appraisal scam, and the talk about the IRS domainer tax confusion definitely has some domainers doubting the future of domain name investing and the well-being of the entire industry. While I understand that all three may have drastic and negative implications on domaining, I can't help but still feel that there is no better time to be a domainer.

Our marketplace is still thriving.
Media and public awareness of the domain industry is still rising.
And companies and corporations around the entire globe are beginning to fully understand that a good domain name is a major integral factor in their overall business plan.

Domaining is big business. And it's here to stay.

Below are some articles/posts/opinions that I've read over the past week that indicate that today's domainers still should feel confident in their investments and understand that even though things seem bumpy right now, smoother sailing is still ahead.

Have a great weekend!

New York Times
"Coins In The New Realm"

Ecommerce Times
Getting Ahead in Domain Name Trading

Domaining.org.uk
LLLL.net domains - welcome to the next internet goldrush

American Nonsense
Switching to Domain Name Investing

Go Daddy
GO DADDY IS A TRAILBLAZER IN SAFEGUARDING CUSTOMER DATA

Talk Price
The Secret: Dropped Domains

DomainBits
WHAT EVERYONE OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT GEO DOMAINS

Learn N Earn
Big Bucks from Domains

The Conceptualist

Making Domains Your Business

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Domain Backwording: The Journey Continues

Since my first post on a new emerging domain trend called Backwording, I have, with help from other intrigued domainers, uncovered a little more interesting information, facts and tidbits about this topic. The last 5 days have been very exciting. Here's what we've found:

Things we've found out since the last post:

-- In early 2001, an Israeli firm named LocallyNet, made obscure headlines with it's idea of using a text-conversion algorithm in Internet browsers to allow typed-in entries to be read backwards by the browser. Seems the main motivator was that the CEO of LocallyNet saw the rapidly dwindling supply of domain names available as limitations to a growing Internet. This seems to be the origin of today's current backwording framework.

- As of today, there has not been one WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) domain name dispute case filed citing legal action against a backwards/reversed domain at fault or infringing on any UDRP policies.

- Major domain parking companies seem to often view backworded domains as regular domains and aggregate keyword advertising content as if the domain was not reversed. Examples are sthgilF.com (flights.com) and noisiveleT.com (television.com). [VERY INTERESTING]

- A huge marketplace for premium and generic backworded domains still exist, although each day a few more of our favorites are registered. Maybe people are starting to see this an an alternative method for advertising their websites?

- Google registered elgooG.com on April 7, 2000 and that domain has an Alexa ranking of 572,726. Another fun site is here.

- As expected, we were unable to find any significant sale records of any backworded domains in the past. This is mainly due to backwording still being an undiscovered niche.

- No matter how many people agree or disagree that backwording may become a permanent practice in the future, people and businesses around the world are already using backworded domains, and have been for quite some time.

- We also discovered that there is not a comprehensive list of developed domains that utilize backwording, so a project has been started and will be launched at Backwording.com. This website will be a community for domainers interested in backwording and a way for us to communicate more about the topic. Feel free to send me any backworded domains you have recently registered and developed so we can add them to our developed website directory (info@logistiklabs.com). More news will come soon. Stay posted by subscribing here.

So, as you can see, backwording is causing a small but definable ripple in the domain pool and causing other domainers to take notice. I'd like to thank everyone for their emails, comments and opinions on this emerging topic so far and look forward to uncovering more information about this interesting and hidden domain niche. The excitement is growing. Stay tuned.

-Rudy

Link Love Tuesday: Domaining

Lots of stuff going on in the domain industry, and we are lucky to have some great resources that help cover and inform all of us about the current events and present trends.  Below are some articles, tools and news that caught my attention this week.  Thanks to everybody for suggesting some of these reading selections and enjoy the domain link love.

1. Domaining.com - A special thanks to Francois at domaining.com for inviting Logistik Labs to be part of their blog news feed.  What an honor! This site is great for getting all your latest domain headline news in one steady feed from some of the best domain blogs out there. Bookmark this site.

2. URLacademy.com - Good domain article about how the Canadian extension .ca is picking up way better than the .us national extension. Check out the article here. 

3. FractionalDomaining - This blog written  by Neal Voron is a look at the world of buying, selling, owning, developing and monetizing of fractional domains. As fractional domain ownership increasingly becomes a more popular, Neal will be there to cover this every step of the way. Bookmark this.

4. DotSauce - If you don't check out this site on a regular basis, you're really missing out. Mark at DotSauce has committed himself to bringing a constant flow of good information on a regular basis to all domainers. Almost 700 RSS subscribers can't be wrong. 

5. IsItMeOrIsEveryoneElseStupid.com - My day wouldn't be complete without stopping by Julia's domain blog and checking out the latest rant or opinion about our domain industry. Beware, very addictive.

6. What’s Up With GoDaddy’s .Biz Pricing? - DomainNameWire.com article covering the recent price raise in Go Daddy's .biz extension pricing. 

7. Domain-Pop- (tool) I recommend this backlink checker over a few others when checking backlinks for your domains. It allows you to check Link Popularity, Domain Popularity & IP Popularity. 

Wanna get some Link Love? Send us a link to your domain article, tool or post.

info@LogistikLabs.com

Why LLL.coms are no longer "safe" bets

Good thread going on over at the NamePros domain forum regarding one senior domainer's opinion that purchases of LLL.coms are growing inherently risky due to the possibility that the LLL domain can easily be taken away by UDRP. Read it here.

One thing I personally agree with is the suggestion that it is better to "unpark" any valuable, non-generic names due to the fact that you have no control over the advertising feed, which means that one single Trademark/competing link is enought to establish "bad faith use". This is where UDRP comes in.

Any domainer owning a LLL.com needs to understand that development of this kind of domain is necessary to create your own identity with the domain name, so if another entity or business tries or attempts to legally "take" the domain, you can help your case by showing good faith use with no received revenue through advertised/competing parking.

Take a few minutes and read the NamePros post to gain some perspective of other domainers on this subject, especially if you own any LLL.com's.

-Rudy

Domain Tool of the Week: DNWatch.biz

"Brings all the latest domain forum posts into one easy-to-read thread!"

If you're like me, you frequent some domaining forums throughout your day. Maybe you visit NamePros, DNForum, AcornDomains, and a few others. Maybe you visit DiscussNames or DomainNameForums and DigitalPoint? Either way, taking time to visit each one sure seems to be rather time consuming but how else can I stay informed and read the latest posts from my favorite domaining forums? 

I'd like to introduce you to DNWatch.biz. 

DNWatch.biz is a website that organizes all the latest posts at the most popular domain forums and processes them into one simple and complete forum thread.  Each quarter hour, the site will feed in the most result threads generated on sites like DigitalPoint, NamePros, and DNForum which pretty much eliminate the need of visiting all three sites unless you see something that sparks your interest. If you do see something your looking to grab, clicking on the thread will bring you there in a new window so you don’t lose your spot. 

This tool rules. 

Check out more of DNWatch.biz here.

Source: ComeDomain

How "Healthy" Are Your Domain Names?

With my annual doctor's appointment scheduled for next week, I thought I'd implement some sort of medical theme in today's post. You see, my upcoming visit is for my yearly physical examination which helps determine how healthy I am as a person. This inspection is very important and allows me to fix or correct any bad trends I may be doing to my body before permanent damage is done. This same concept can be used towards domaining. There are a few things we need to review at least on a yearly-basis to make sure our domain portfolio is "healthy" and "robust". I have listed some tips and suggestions below for helping your domains stay fit, trim and effecient. Welcome to your Domain Name Annual Check-up.

The Parking Exam: Manually check the status of each domain name in your portfolio. This may take some time but I'll explain how it is beneficial. Each one of your domains needs to be either developed for traffic or parked for revenue. This is important. You see, most domain registrars that sell domains have a default status your purchased domain goes into that allows that registrar to park your domain for free, with no benefit of receiving any sort of income from traffic or clicks. You can fix this. The name servers for each of your domains needs to either point towards a domain parking program that allows you to monetize visitor traffic or towards a developed website that allows visitors to interact and use. Allowing the default server settings to stay on your new domain purchases does not benefit you at all since visitors that click or visit the webpage will ultimately be putting money in the pocket of the registar and not the owner. It's your domain name, so take advantage of monetizing the traffic by choosing a free domain parking provider like Sedo while you decide on what to do with your new domain.

The SEO Exam: During this exam, we will be checking the search engine optimization of your developed domain names that have a working website. Metatags, keyword tags and Google page placement are just a few things that are important in determing the health of a domain name. Better SEO means better publicity, which in turn means better value for the domain. Do yourself a favor and check out sites like SEObook, SEOchat and BruceClay to familarize yourself with simple things you can do to help optimize your SEO and tweak more value into your domains.

The Backlink Exam: Who's linking to your domain names? You don't know? Well find out by using tools such as iWebTools Backlink Checker to see which other websites are directly linking to your domain names. The more relevant the site is that is linking back to your website, the better the quality of the backlink.  Feel free to inform us of your own domain-related websites for the upcoming Link Love Monday article, where we show some love by posting links to interesting domaining websites suggested by our readers. Enjoy the free link from us!

The Whois Exam: Correct, complete and proper Whois information is a very imporant detail in the well-being of a domain name. Not only does it serve as a means for a potential buyer to contact you regarding the possibility of purchasing your domain, but it also is used to confirm a certain domain is registered to a certain person or business. Take a few minutes and check the Whois information of your domains at Whois.net, Internic and Who.is. If you want to protect your privacy when it comes to your domain name registrations, opt to use a proxy buying company or pay the small extra fee offered by most registrars to activate private registration.

The Sales Price Exam: So you've listed some of your domains for sale. Great! Traffic is good and steady but hey, if the domain is so valuable, why is no one offering to buy it? Good question. It's not that the domain is not wanted, it's just that the sale price may be too high. Face it, the asking price on most domains listed is pretty ridiculous. With the recent sales of premium domains, it's easy for a domainer to believe they are sitting on a multi-million dollar portfolio. Truth is, if your domain is up for sale and you've either received no requests to buy or traffic is minimal and scarce, you probably have it listed too high. Re-examine the domain for sale and check current trends or fads that may have caused you to list the high price when you initially purchased it. Edit your sales price, list it again and entertain any reasonable offers you receive. Keeping the sale price too high almost guarantees you either having to reg it again or confining the domain to a life of obscurity. You bought it to sell it, so multiply your chances of receiving an offer by pricing it fair and reasonable.

The Expiration Exam: Dropped domain purchasing is a huge aftermarket niche. You can believe that every single day, there are a growing number of domainers that search and hunt the newest dropped domains and scoop them up, some of the time without the original domain owner even knowing their precious domain is available to be bought! This can be a huge nightmare, believe me, I know. Protect yourself by checking the expiration on all your domains and setting them to automatically renew. You can thank me later.

The Competitors Exam: Pull up Google and search for your domain keyword. Notice the paid for Google Adwords sponsor links that pop up in the search page? These are your competitors. These websites have paid to have their domain automatically invade the page when a certain keyword is searched for. These sponsor links are there to take traffic away from your site. Research these competitors and know thy enemy. 

Utilizing these 7 simple domain tips can help add value to your domains and increase your peace of mind when it comes to the  "health" of your entire domain portfolio. Take the time to examine your name investments on a regular basis to avoid costly mistakes or negative trends in efficiency.  

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